October
Principal's Post
As we put our colorful September behind us and we prepare for the long winter months ahead we can do so with knowing that we have had the best September weather on record. The fall colors are just that much more spectacular when its accompanied by warm sunlight. I hope that your families were able to enjoy the opportunity to be out in our beautiful Alaskan fall weather.
The school year is picking up momentum as one week passes to the next. We are more than six weeks into the new school year and in two weeks students will complete the 1st quarter. The quarter will end on Wednesday, October 17th. This is a mid-term report for the semester that students earn their semester 1/2 credits.
Students are required to complete 24.5 credits for graduation. Every class is a 1/2 credit per semester, so students with a full course load (7 classes) can earn up to 3.5 credits per semester. In four years students can earn up to 28 credits with a full course load. For parents that have 9th and 10th graders, encouraging them to do well now will pay dividends later in their high school career. Incentives like off-campus mornings or afternoon will be options later if they do well in the 9th and 10th grade.
Speaking of incentives, we have an academic recovery model called PHARM. PHARM is an acronym that stands for Palmer High Academic Recovery Measures. If a student is failing one or more classes and/or doesn't achieve a 2.5 or higher GPA then the student will be placed in PHARM. What that looks like is, the student is retained in their 4th-hour class for an additional 25 minutes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These additional 75-minutes students focus on getting that failing grade, or GPA up. If the student gets their grades up, they get out. We find this to be a good motivating incentive. This year we are exiting students as soon as they show the grade has improved. The early data is showing that the students are responding with greater than 25% of the students assigned to PHARM earning their way out in the first three weeks.
We are constantly striving for better ways to motivate students and improve our practices in school. We welcome parent feedback and have an open door and what to hear your voice and listen to suggestions for better ways to serve our students and our community.
MSBSD 1st Annual College & Career Fair
Who: High school juniors and seniors
When: October 17th from 9am-1pm and from 3pm-6pm
Where: MTA Sports Center, Palmer, AK
What else? Transportation is provided for the am session.
Ask your student to inquire at guidance for permission slips.
Palmer Lady Moose Cross-Country
Agriculture teacher Mr. Cody Bues gets National Recognition
Digital Citizenship Week
Digital Citizenship- a person who develops the skills and knowledge to effectively use the Internet and other digital technology, especially in order to participate responsibly in social and civic activities.
Digital Footprint- is a makeup of the content you create, post, and share; as well as the content that others post, and share, with you and about you.
How can you help your student?
Rules to live by online: An online threat to the school or students in school will be taken very seriously, and will come with consequences. This is the equivalent of mentioning the word "bomb" in the TSA line at the airport after 9/11. Talk to your students about avoiding this scenario and being a good digital citizen.
Cyber-bullying and harassment outside of school will have consequential impacts on students while at school. Because of this, we will intervene with students and it will be addressed at school. Tell your student to keep their online conversations positive.
Gaggle Alerts: All student work that is done on an MSBSD format (emails, google forms, ect.) is screened by an outside agency. When a safety concern is screened, this agency will send us an alert so we are aware, and we will look into the nature of the alert. Keywords like suicide, profanity, racial slurs, and violence are examples of what will prompt an alert. Conversations from parents about time and place appropriateness can go a long way to avoid problems for our students while in school.
We encourage parents to reach out to us when concerns come to your attention. So many rumors circulate that are unsubstantiated. We investigate them all and typically we can inform you of the facts in the matter of concern.
Thank you!
Learn more about us.
Visit the Palmer High School Facebook page to learn about upcoming events and great things that our students are doing. If you have something to share on our homepage don't hesitate to reach out to us.
Email: paul.reid@matsuk12.us
Website: https://www.matsuk12.us/phs
Location: 1170 West Bogard Road, Palmer, AK, USA
Phone: 907 746-8400